Nicola Coughlan defends herself against “plus-size heroine” comments

Nicola Coughlan is completely above her body and is the center of so much attention.

The “Bridgerton” star pushed back against the public’s fixation on her figure in a new interview with Time magazine, in which she poked fun at being called “brave” for appearing in the Regency romance series era was naked.

“Don’t call me brave. I have a great pair of breasts,” she said. “There’s nothing brave about it, basically I’m just showing them off.”

“I’m a few sizes smaller than the average size of a woman in the UK and I’m seen as a ‘plus-size heroine’,” said Coughlan, who plays sultry Penelope Featherington in the series.

The Irish actress described the body talk as even more frustrating considering how much she put into her performance.

“I worked my ass off for this show. I barely saw my family and friends and people were like, ‘But your body,'” she explained.

Although the actress understands that people will take the comments as a compliment, she says she doesn’t find them “nice” at all.

“It’s reductive and boring to focus on how I look,” Coughlan explained. “What if I suddenly play ballerina and lose a lot of weight, will you not like me anymore? This is crazy and so offensive.”

While speaking to Stylist for the cover story in May, the Derry Girls star shared that she made the decision to bare her body during her sex scenes with co-star Luke Newton, who plays her love interest Colin Bridgerton on the show plays.

“There’s a scene where I’m completely naked in front of the camera and that was my idea, my choice,” she revealed. “It just felt like the biggest ‘fuck you’ out of all the conversations surrounding my body; It was incredibly powerful.”

“I felt beautiful in that moment and thought, ‘When I’m 80, I want to look back on this and remember how damn hot I looked!'”